Shuffle Challenge
by TheAwesomenessThatIsDumbledore
Summary: ... you know what that is.


**I know, I know, the Shuffle challenge died out ages ago, but I thought, I wouldn't be a TRUE FanFiction author unless I wrote one. You all know the rules, so I won't bother elaborating.**

**BTW, it's pretty late at night, so be prepared for a relatively dangerous level of lack-of-sleep-induced hysteria.**

How to Save a Life by the Fray

"Hey... Angel."

Angel looked up from her book, slightly irritated.

"What do you need, Max?" She asked brusquely.

Max paused, unsure of how to put her emotions into words.

"Er..." Was the only sound that came out, unfortunately.

Angel let out an exasperated sigh, and went back to her book.

And the miles of distance between them grew ever longer.

Max had no idea what it meant when Angel huffed at her, or ignored what she was saying, or just blatantly and unashamedly ignored her every minor command.

She was not a sassy teenager. She was simply estranged from the flock, a now 12-year-old girl wishing for something else, refusing to connect with anyone. Max didn't know her anymore. Where had she gone? Where was the sweet, innocent girl who had eagerly adopted a ragamuffin puppy from the Institute?

Max didn't know.

* * *

I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie

Fang looked at the Max, strapped next to him in a huge white chair, whitecoats bustling around them. Death, he knew, was imminent. The rest of the Flock was nowhere to be seen, possibly having already met their fate.

At that moment, as it always did, his thoughts drifted away from the situation. He suddenly began to wonder what would happen when they died.

Would they go to Heaven, premade angels to save God some time? Fang had never been very religious, always one who had to see it to believe it. Maybe they would go to the other place. They'd-he'd-taken quite a few people to the grave. But they were Erasers, hardly counted as people.

But if they didn't, did he?

Did he have a soul? Would his life simply fade to black? Would he be granted into any kind of afterlife? He was an abomination, a mutation. He was a disruption of the natural order of things. It didn't seem likely he'd be welcomed with open arms anywhere. Maybe he'd simply walk into the dark, oblivious to anything around him.

He glanced over at Max, whose breathing was level and even as she tried fruitlessly to think of an escape plan.

Suddenly, Fang's breathing leveled too, and he realized it didn't matter what happened.

He'd simply follow Max's leadership there.

* * *

Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles (LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE)

Gazzy laughed as he turned cartwheels through the air, hardly able to tell the ground from the sky as the world twirled thousands of miles beneath him. Dizzy in midair, it hardly mattered, he thought, as the horizon tipped this way and that.

Suddenly, Nudge cried, "There! Over there!"

And sure enough, the sun was just barely peeking over the trees, a faint glimmer of light that you could barely tell was there. The once dark night sky was instantly illuminated, shapeless blobs turning into the people Gazzy trusted the most in the world.

Angel laughed in pure delight, and grabbed Gazzy's hand.

Max sighed happily above them.

"It's over," he heard her say to Fang. "The deed is done. Yesterday has ended, and today has begun.

Fang said something back that Gazzy couldn't make out; after all, he was swooping through the air with Angel and Nudge.

It was pure bliss, soaring without a care through the sunrise. They had escaped; it was over. The ice of responsibility that had always covered them seemed to melt away, and suddenly everyone was just laughing, for no reason.

There was the sun.

* * *

The Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machines

Even the happiness hurt.

Nudge thought this dully as she lay sprawled on a cold cement floor, her form broken and misshapen.

She felt guilty that she was happy, that the emotion was flickering weakly inside her, even as it was barely noticeable. THe Flock was gone, she would never see them again. She had run, run without thinking. She had run, leaving everything behind, abandoning all thought except for some animal instinct to run faster than she had ever though possible. The trees had flashed passed her and wind-tears bit at her eyes, but she still ran. She ran for them, for them who she knew were dead, were gone. For now that they had been sacrificed, she certainly couldn't leave their legacy behind.

She had woken up on the forest floor, a perfectly normal occurrence, but there was no steady, reassuring breathing, no one chatting as they cooked hot dogs over a fire for breakfast.

Instead, she awoke to mauled corpses in the place of her family.

She hadn't thought. For some reason, Nudge had leapt up and began running. It was a good thing she had, too, Nudge thought, remembering the heavy footsteps that had pounded in pursuit soon after.

Nudge felt nothing but that little bit of happy inside her, like a stale, residual memory that refused to leave. It was every happy memory she had with them, with those mauled corpses that had once been much more, concentrated into one content emotion.

She had run for her sisters and brother, leaving her love and her loving behind, driven by a wild desire to survive. Now she had nothing left but a painful happiness.

(That didn't make much sense, did it?)

* * *

You Don't Know What Love Is by the White Stripes

"You don't even know what love is. You just...you just do what you're told!"

Iggy flung the words at Nudge, his voice dripping with venom and loathing.

"I suppose you could be considered respectable, but it's a stretch!" She replied angrily.

"You just do this for yourself, no thoughts about anyone else!"

"Again?" Max whispered to Fang, who was quietly updating his blog next to her..

"Of course," he replied, rolling his eyes.

Their fights were a daily occurrence now.

"You're acting like a ten year old!" Nudge screamed in exasperation, and threw her hands in the air.

Nudge and Iggy continued bantering, until suddenly she burst into tears and ran into his arms. Same old, same old, thought Max.

They were driven together by mere physical attraction, and that they were in love with the idea of being in love. So, they argued and fought, and brought the rest of the Flock down with them. Then, of course, they always and exchanged soppy, blubbering, teary hugs.

Really, neither of the knew what love was, Max thought, shaking her head in disbelief as she watched Iggy stroke Nudge's hair.

* * *

I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

Fang knew he looked like an idiot.

But, to be honest, he could care less.

He would pretend that he was in total in control of the situation, but if Max cracked a single smile, the jig was up. He was a puddle on the floor.

So, he had figured one day while watching Max joke with Iggy and give Gazzy a huge noogie, why bother pretending?

So that''s when the campaign started.

Being with Max just made him...not really happy, but content. Like all was right in the world. Therefore, logic would dictate that he should find a way to be with her more often.

Much easier said than done.

Fang had had no idea that it would affect him this way, that he would end up in a cave wallowing in his own self-pity. He went nuts and made a complete fool of himself, and to be honest, Fang couldn't blame Max for rejecting him. He had been a blubbering idiot in there.

I mean, Fang had suspected that it would have just gotten worse when he got closer, and that his attempts would probably be fruitless, but he found himself not caring. He felt like he would wait patiently, constantly checking to see if the answer had changed. And it hadn't.

Fang was okay with that.

* * *

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing by Jack Johnson

Iggy was not a patient person.

People with sight could examine a magazine or find shapes in the clouds, but Iggy couldn't . He just had to sit there.

So he was understandably disgruntled for the long wait for Ella to figure it out.

He was polite, and courteous. He put up with her friends, sang her songs and danced her dances (in a manner of speaking, of course).

But must he always be waiting?

He couldn't just sit there, wishing and waiting for her to pick up on the huge, elephant-sized hints.

He basically played her fool, and Fang never let him hear the end of that. Of course, he always had the perfect comeback for Loverboy, but that was beside the point.

I mean, he knew there wasn't a guarantee. But, for the love of God, have some kind of reaction!

He knew she'd probably had boyfriends before. But this was his first time, and would it really kill her to make it easier? If Iggy was her, he certainly wouldn't have been so cruel.

But he was still there waiting.

* * *

Wishing You Were Somehow Here from the Phantom of the Opera

Fang had once been her true confidant, her right-wing man, but then that was shattered.

Now she was wishing he was somehow near, that she could somehow hear his voice.

And dreaming of him wouldn't help her do anything.

She knew it was impossible, but she dreamed it nonetheless. She wished she wasn't constantly biting back tears, that she could forget.

But she was.

* * *

The next song was the Harry Potter theme so... I don't know what to do here. Just imagine the Flock in Gryffindor robes. When that becomes too overwhelmingly awesome for your mind to tolerate, move on to the next one.

And yes, that counts as a song.

* * *

Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones (Oh god, this'll be weird)

Fang wasn't emo, he just liked black.

Other colors were too gaudy. He wanted to fit in, to disappear among the crowds. It was like some deformed sort of paranoia.

He wished the other hues, the reds and blues and yellows, would disappear. He wanted to be able to fit among the shadows, practically invisible.

But he wasn't emo. Nope, definitely not emo.

**Hmm. Some of those are pretty questionable.**


End file.
